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Article History

Received: 28 October 2025

Accepted: 17 August 2026

First Online: 21 September 2026

Ethics

Competing interests: The competing interests declared below reflect the authors’ disclosures during the development and up to the endorsement of this guideline by the participating societies. S.W. declares receiving third-party funding for research projects to the author’s institution, with no direct personal payment, and being a founding member of Phage4-1Health (unpaid position) as well as elected member of the steering committee of the PhageNET DZIF (unpaid). S.L.J. received a maternity leave stipend from the German Center for Infection Research and a grant from the Fraunhofer Thera Nova Program as well as travel support to the ESCMID phage course in Lyon 2024 and receipt of equipment from the German Collection of Microorganisms and Cell Cultures (DSMZ). H.L. is an inventor on patents relating to Bacterial Vector (publication number: 20080112928), Pharmaceutical Composition for Tumor Treatment (publication number: 20100086557), Tumor-Specific Bacterial Promoter Elements (publication number: 20120244621) and Codon Optimization (publication number: 20190325989). P.J.C. reports institutional research funding through the PhageSafety (Institut Pasteur Network Grant) and EPHICACI (FWO Grant) research projects and serving as an unpaid member of the KLEOPATRA Advisory Board (JPIAMR grant), an unpaid lead of the EDQM Working Group on Bacteriophages, an unpaid member of the EUCAST Phage Susceptibility Testing (EUCAST-PST) Subcommittee and an unpaid board member of the Belgian Society for Viruses of Microbes. J.P.P. is employed by the Belgian Defense as statutory officer, and he received travel support (including registration fees, flights and accommodation) from several conference organizers and academic institutions, including the Global AMR R&D Hub, Riga Stradiņš University, Argomenti di Malattie Infettive e Tropicali (AMIT), the Phage Therapy Congress and Lund University, for participation in scientific meetings and conferences. J.P.P. serves as unpaid Secretary of P-H-A-G-E.org; unpaid Science Officer of the ESCMID Study Group for Non-Traditional Antibacterial Therapy (ESGNTA); an unpaid member of the European Medicines Agency (EMA) Novel Therapies and Technologies Working Party Operational Expert Group on Bacteriophages, where he contributes to the development of guidance on the quality, safety and efficacy of bacteriophages as veterinary medicines; and as team leader of the NATO Science and Technology Organization project Reintroduction of Phage Therapy in Military Medicine. In addition, J.P.P. serves as Vice Chair Cross Reader for European Commission Horizon 2020 and Horizon Europe calls (paid). M.d.J. received a postdoctoral research grant through the SAPHETY project. M.d.J. participated in the development of these guidelines while employed at Sciensano and has been employed by Rime Bioinformatics, a French start-up specializing in phage genomics, since November 2024. S.M. reports academic research funding from The LOOP Zurich (mTORUS project), the University of Zurich Postdoctoral Grant, the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Innovative Training Network (VIROINF) and the Swiss National Science Foundation (SPIRIT project). S.M.C. received travel support to attend the IndoSwiss AMR Dialogue (Bangalore, 2023). S.M.C. serves as an unpaid advisory board member of the EPICACY project, an unpaid Executive Board member of the ESCMID Study Group for Non-Traditional Antibacterial Therapy (ESGNTA) and the International Society for Viruses of Microbes (ISVM) and as unpaid Project Coordinator of International Phagistry. L.L. reports research funding from The LOOP Zurich (mTORUS 2022) and received travel support to attend the 16th Annual Meeting of the German Society for Environmental Dentistry. C.W. reports research grants and consulting fees from Solventum, Mölnlycke, Delta G and Avaris. C.W. also received honoraria for lectures and presentations from Solventum and Mölnlycke. S.L. is a member of the PhageNET DZIF Steering Committee (unpaid). E.A.I. reports institutional research funding from the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF), MetaSystems Hard & Software GmbH and the Federal State of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern (EFRE). E.A.I. receives inventor remuneration from the University of Münster for patents licensed to Bruker. E.A.I. received personal honoraria for lectures and presentations from Shionogi, Pfizer and BD Biosciences, including travel support from Pfizer and BD Biosciences. E.A.I. also received personal honoraria for serving on the expert board of the Institute for Quality Assurance and Transparency in Healthcare (IQTIG) for the quality assurance program on sepsis diagnosis, treatment and follow-up. M.W. reports research grants from the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF), the German Research Foundation (DFG), the Federal Joint Committee (G-BA), the German Federal Ministry of Health (BMG) as well as Biotest, Pantherna and Aptarion. M.W. received consulting fees from Biotest, Pantherna and Aptarion and personal honoraria for lectures and presentations from AstraZeneca, Chiesi, Insmed, Gilead, Pfizer and Boehringer Ingelheim. T. Faltus received personal remuneration from Springer Nature for authoring a review article on phage therapeutics and pharmaceutical legislation. P.R. reports grants from the DFG and received personal honoraria for lectures and presentations from AVOXA, PHOENIX Pharma and the German Pharmaceutical Society (DPhG) and travel support from AVOXA. P.R. serves in unpaid advisory roles on the Scientific Advisory Board of the Federal Chamber of Pharmacists (BAK), the Federal Institute for Drugs and Medical Devices (BfArM) and the Drug Commission of German Pharmacists (AMK). H.F. serves as an unpaid member of the Federal Weekly Conference on the Epidemiological Situation (EpiLag) at the Robert Koch Institute (RKI) and the Federal Working Group on Infection Surveillance (BLAG) at the RKI. H.F. is President of the German Association for the Control of Virus Diseases (DVV), a board member of the German Society for Hygiene and Microbiology (DGHM) and advisory board member of the German Society for Virology (GfV), and the State Representative for Schleswig-Holstein of the German Medical Association for Information Technology, Medical Informatics and eHealth (BÄMI). M.W.P. serves as president for the Paul Ehrlich Society for Antiinfective Therapy (unpaid). U.M. received consulting fees and personal honoraria for lectures, presentations and educational activities from Austrianni. S.B. serves as an unpaid Speaker of the Special Interest Group ‘Microbial Viruses’ of the German Society for General and Applied Microbiology (VAAM). M.S. reports institutional research funding from Vertex Pharmaceuticals through an investigator-initiated research award. M.S. received consulting fees, personal honoraria for lectures, presentations and educational activities and travel support and served on advisory boards for Vertex Pharmaceuticals. M.S. serves as the President-Elect of the German Society for Pediatric Pulmonology (GPP) and as Chair of the German Cystic Fibrosis Research Council (FGM), both unpaid. J.B. reports research funding from the German Armed Forces CBRN Protection Program (B-Schutzprogramm) and the European Defence Fund (EDF) Resilience PHAGE project. J.J.B. received travel support from the EDF Resilience PHAGE project and serves in an unpaid leadership role within the EDF Resilience PHAGE consortium. M.K. received personal honoraria for lectures from the Medical Association of North Rhine (Ärztekammer Nordrhein) and the Academy for Infectious Medicine (Akademie für Infektionsmedizin e.V.). P.T. reports institutional research funding from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, the Ralph & Marian Falk Medical Research Trust and the Colton Center for Autoimmunity. T. Ferry reports institutional research funding from PHAXIAM. T. Ferry serves as the unpaid Clinical Officer of the ESCMID Study Group for Non-Traditional Antibacterial Therapy (ESGNTA). M.J.G.T.V. reports research grants from Merck Sharp & Dohme, Heel, Roche and Tillotts. M.J.G.T.V. received consulting fees from Gilead, Tillotts, Pfizer, BIOASTER, GlaxoSmithKline, Ecraid, Eumedica, Bactolife and PAION. M.J.G.T.V. also received personal honoraria for lectures, presentations and educational activities from the Academy for Infectious Medicine (Akademie für Infektionsmedizin), AstraZeneca, bioMérieux, Biotest, COCS GmbH, the DGI, the European Society of Neurogastroenterology, the Falk Foundation, FomF GmbH, Gilead, GlaxoSmithKline, Helios Kliniken, the Hessian State Social Court (Hessisches Landessozialgericht), Infektio Forum, Janssen-Cilag, Klinikum Kassel, the State Medical Association of Hesse (Landesärztekammer Hessen), LMU Kliniken, Merck Sharp & Dohme, Pfizer, Streamed Up, St. Vincent Hospital and Tillotts. A.Y.C. reports institutional research funding from the German Center for Infection Research (DZIF) and the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMFTR). A.Y.C. received personal honoraria for lectures from Roland Berger, Goethe University Frankfurt and the Academy for Infectious Medicine (Akademie für Infektionsmedizin e.V.). A.Y.C. received travel grants from ESCMID (2024 and 2025) and the Federation of European Microbiological Societies (FEMS) (2023). A.Y.C. serves as the unpaid Scientific Secretary of the EUCAST Subcommittee on Phage Susceptibility Testing as well as elected member of the steering committee of the PhageNET DZIF (unpaid). A.Y.C. is a member of the DGI, the German Society of Internal Medicine (DGIM), the German Society for Hematology and Medical Oncology/Infectious Diseases Working Group (DGHO/AGIHO) and the ESCMID Study Group for Non-Traditional Antibacterial Therapy (ESGNTA). A.D., O.K., I.K., H.B., M.C., S.H., C.R., W.B., O.H., R.L.K., M.D., J.H., R.K. and B.C. declare no competing interests. An overview of the competing interests of the full guideline group ‘Personalized Bacteriophage Therapy’ of the Association of the Scientific Medical Societies in Germany is published in Supplementary File . The evaluation and management of competing interests is detailed in the section ‘Disclosure of interests and management of conflicts’ ( ).

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